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February 6, 2013

ETF Addicts to Get Fill at Year’s Biggest Event

Fee wars, actively managed ETFs, new products are among the topics addressed; featured speakers include Jack Brennan and James Grant

A screenshot of the InsideETFs conference home page.

The world’s largest gathering of advisors, investors and service providers focused on exchange-traded products opens Sunday in sunny Florida where the temperatures should be about 80 degrees but where discussions of “hot” relate strictly to investments.

That is because all the usual subjects on the minds of investment conferees—generating income in a low-rate environment, managing volatility, promising international markets—are the subjects discussed at the three-day Inside ETFs conference.

Yet all is seen through the prism of many investment connoisseurs’ favorite investment vehicle—the tradable, transparent, thrifty and tax-friendly products that come in every imaginable flavor these days.

ETF addicts, who often pride themselves on their miserly approach to investment costs, will likely be anticipating the address given by the Vanguard Group’s Jack Brennan on Monday.

The chairman emeritus of Vanguard, a key sponsor of the event, plans to address a perennial question in his presentation—how low can costs go?—in addition to examining trends such as product proliferation and the emergence of actively managed ETFs.

And a closing keynote by the cerebral James Grant should keep investors and advisors in their chairs till the conference’s Tuesday afternoon finale. The publisher of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer will explore the effects of loose monetary policy and the rise of ETFs on the fixed-income market.

In between and throughout, topics that keep ETF investors awake at night, or at least supercharged by day—the soundness of underlying indexes, commission-free ETF trading platforms, ETFs in 401(k) plans, new products—will all be addressed. And AdvisorOne will be tweeting, blogging and covering these issues as the conference progresses.